health ministers from the g7 group of the world s richest countries will hold an emergency meeting later to discuss its spread. courtney bembridge reports. of these are 600 passengers who landed in amsterdam on friday, more than 60 have tested positive for coronavirus and a quarter of those cases are the omicron variant. it was first detected by scientists in south africa last week, but it s not known where it originated there are fears the strain is highly infectious, posing a fresh challenge to global efforts to bring the pandemic under control. a number of countries had brought in travel restrictions on southern africa, including the united states, britain, japan, and qatar, angering south africa s president, cyril ramaphosa.